In the City of Brotherly Love
by Invisible Ranger
Summary: #2 in the Face and Murdock "Bromance" series. Faceman has found himself a cushy new hideaway, and all is well until Murdock discovers its secret location...Sequel to "In the Land of Milk and Honey." Enjoy!


In the City of Brotherly Love

by Mizhowlinmad (HBF), 2010

Rating: R

Summary: #2 in the A-Team Movie Bromance series. Face has found himself a new cushy private hangout, so what could possibly go wrong? Murdock, unfortunately, has the answer. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: TAT belongs to SJC and Fox Studios. I'm borrowing them for a little, ahem, disciplinary session and not for profit.

"_In other news, U.S. military officials declined to comment on an AP report implicating several American soldiers in the worst case of prisoner abuse since the infamous Abu Ghraib scandal…"_

_ Click._

Face was getting pissed. All the channels were either covering this garbage, or else the World Cup preliminaries, or, on one channel, a children's show in Farsi. He'd been positive that little rat of a Syrian was lying to him about the so-called deluxe satellite TV package. It was a deluxe piece of shit.

All things being considered, though, this wasn't a bad alternative to the Team's hooch. It was just after seven on a Saturday morning. Strictly off-duty time. Already a furnace outside. And in those conditions, it was just a bad idea to tan in the Sandbox.

This place was perfect for his needs. Face was just amazed he hadn't thought of it earlier.

The LNs who provided "security" around here were really nice guys once you got to know 'em and spoke a bit of their language. They were even nicer when you hooked 'em up with a few six-packs, a carton or two of Marlboros (the Hajis loved their American death sticks, go figure) or a line on a nice piece of ass. Face had graciously given them all three.

"You come here any time, Faceman. We are back later," the one guy had said in broken English.

_Yeah, much later, _Face remembered. The two Iraqis had scurried off to their forbidden pleasures faster than rats to fresh garbage.

He was sprawled out on a bed he was pretty sure used to belong to Saddam. Or maybe one of his sons. Or his mistress. He didn't care. The thing was comically ginormous, soft and cushy as anything in the best penthouses he'd scammed in New York and Vegas and Miami. Its sheets were satin, just perfect, patterned like a giraffe's skin.

Again, the only thing missing in this whole picture was a girl. Face momentarily thought of Charisa, and how she might look in the reflection of the huge mirror mounted on the ceiling above.

She was still pissed at him, of course. If she knew he was illegally camping out in one of Saddam's former palaces, her mood would escalate from pissed to wanting to trash the half of Baghdad that wasn't already. Face smiled to himself. Nothing ever got that girl quite so angry as someone breaking the rules. If she were here now, she'd probably read him the score, then tack on some holier-than-thou shit about priceless local "artifacts" being destroyed.

Hell, none of the stuff in this room could possibly be called an "artifact." A four-poster mahogany bed, a fully stocked wet bar, wall-mounted plasma TV, one of those little mini-fridges full of Toblerone and those chocolate-covered raisins he loved…

There _was _the huge oil painting of Saddam with a panther on a leash. Tackier than a velvet Elvis and much bigger. Face had kept that in there strictly for shits and giggles. It was the one thing that made him think he actually was in Vegas.

He sighed. Not even oh-eight hundred, and he was _bored_. He decided to flick on the TV again, maybe catch a re-run of _Monday Night Football_ from last week…

_WHAP!_

The door crashed open so violently, the Saddam portrait nearly fell off the wall. Face sat up bolt upright, thinking maybe one of the Iraqis had turned on him after all…

"Oh. It's you. Don't you ever knock?" A sigh of relief, then a pause. "And how the hell did you know I was here?"

Murdock looked so simultaneously stunned and wise sometimes. This was one of those times. "Yeah, Facey-man, it was one of the 'terps, who heard it from a guy who heard it from another guy whose sister was bangin' this…"

Face interrupted him. "News travels fast, huh? You wanna grab a beer and stay a while?"

The stunned look vanished, as Murdock's mood quickly changed gears from shock to his normal manic excitement. "Naw. Can't. I came here to invite you on another of my local sightseeing excursions, old chap, up in the firmament, wot?" he said, adopting his most proper Oxford accent.

It sounded promising enough. They were on 48 hours of weekend leave, barring any unexpected assignments. At least three decent beaches were within range of whatever chopper Murdock would be flying. And beaches meant girls.

"Colonel gonna be OK with that?" Face asked. Hannibal would never let him hear the end of it if he and Murdock skipped off to Bahrain without express consent.

Murdock didn't answer. His short attention span had wandered from thoughts of sandy beaches and chopper blades to the pretty blonde BBC reporter on the TV. "Hey, she's kinda cute, Faceman," he said, grinning. "You ever go out with her?"

_"In a related story, Black Forest spokeswoman Hailey Robertson also denied reports of detainees being abused in conjunction with the company's growing presence during the drawdown in Iraq…"_

"Would you turn that shit off? I'm sick of hearing about it."

That was one thing about Murdock…like a kid, once he was fixated on something, he just didn't let go. He was like those damn little dogs that grabbed your nuts and didn't let go. "What's she talkin' about, Face?" He wasn't going to let this one go, either.

Face sighed. "You know how those Black Forest assholes think they can get away with just about anything they want, because they're civs?" His voice dripped contempt. "This is just another mess they've made, and they're trying to pin on us. It's not gonna happen."

The story had broken on Friday morning. Non-stop coverage on all the American and British channels. The worst part of it all was, the Phillies were in the playoffs and Face couldn't watch because of this shitstorm.

If Charisa got mad about rule-breaking, he got equally pissy during baseball withdrawals.

Murdock plopped himself in front of the TV, Indian-style, as if he were watching _SpongeBob SquarePants_ instead of the news. "Wonder what they mean 'abuse,' Face? Like tickling, that sorta thing?"

There _had _been a time when he and Hannibal had interrogated one of those bastards. Tough as a hickory nut, little fucker, couldn't have been more than eighteen. Took him forever to crack, but they all did in the end. Face had tried to erase the images from his memory for the last year. At the time it had been necessary. Strictly business. But he didn't want to drop that bombshell on Murdock. Not now.

_It might drive him crazy._

"Oh. You know, what few things the Geneva Convention still allows…letting the bastards pray to Allah five times a day, reading 'em some David Sedaris in Arabic, that kind of stuff," Face improvised casually, still hearing the Iraqi kid's screams in the corners of his memory as he did.

Murdock had moved from his place in front of the TV to the minibar. Apparently Face's description had satisfied him, and he was on to his next fixation. "Oh. Whatcha got in here? You holdin' out on me?" he asked, opening the ivory-inlaid trunk next to the stash of junk foods.

"Oh, no, that's just…"

Face knew what was in that trunk. It had come with the room. Apparently no one, not even the locals, had thought to open it before. He had, though. Saddam, as it turned out (or his goddamn cousin or whoever else) had been one kinky SOB.

A couple of ostrich plumes. A riding crop that looked like it should be used for elephant polo. Various handcuffs, a stretched-out red lace number, and a few things Face didn't even have names for.

Truth be told, he'd been saving it all for Charisa. Or the hottie from the Beeb, maybe. Now, in front of his best friend, he was the slightest bit embarrassed.

"No, really, that stuff's not all mine, and…"

"Lookie here, Face, it's Christmas in 21-Up Land!" Murdock gushed, sticking a plume in his red baseball cap and a zebra's tail in his belt. "Wanna play dress-up with me?"

That was Obvious Truth #98 about H.M. Murdock. The man had absolutely no fucking inhibition at all.

"Murdock, that stuff's not mine. I swear. You wanna watch a cartoon? We can play the _SpongeBob _drinking game, c'mon…" Face grasped at straws. He just wanted Saddam's stash of sex toys and props back in the box before Murdock got too carried away. Much easier said than done.

He was truly and well into the box now. Like a damn kid set loose at the world's kinkiest Toys "R" Us. In one hand he held a pair of magenta furry handcuffs; the other had grabbed the elephantine riding crop. And then, out of nowhere, he broke out into a dead-on parody of that pop tart from a few years ago that Face always liked:

_Murdilicious definition make them boys go loco  
They want my treasure so they get their pleasures from my photo  
You could see you, you can't squeeze me  
I ain't easy, I ain't sleazy…_

"Murdock…" This was going south fast.

"C'mon, Facey, you gotta show me what that gal meant by 'torture,'" Murdock cooed, licking the crop with his tongue and batting his eyes. "'Cause I'm an innocent in this world and all."

Face looked at the door and decided discretion was the better part of valor. If those Iraqis came back now, no amount of sweet talk or death sticks would be a suitable explanation. He'd be tossed out on his ear faster than he could say "Jihad."

Only…and only because…this was his best friend would he ever agree to do this. It was one, big, surreal-ass dream. But that had been most of his time in Iraq. You just had to embrace the suck and go with it.

In this case, that meant humoring a crazy man in the weirdest possible way. Face took a deep breath.

"You gotta promise me one thing."

"What's that, big boy?"

"If you tell anybody about this…and I mean anybody…or if this somehow winds up on your YouTube page…"

"What?"

"I'm gonna kill you…"

_7 Minutes Later_

"Oh, YEAH! Hit me baby, one more time…"

What _was_ it with Murdock's channeling of pop tarts today? Face wanted to laugh, but thought better of it.

Murdock was stripped down to his cargo shorts. He'd kept the plume and the zebra tail right where they were. Bent over, his arms were shackled to the bed with the "Loverboy" pink handcuffs.

This was some crazy shit. And it should have been Charisa instead.

Then again, she never was much into the kinky stuff.

Murdock, on the other hand, seemed to like it almost as much as he liked Almond Joys and horseradish. Face had to hand it to himself…this actually was kind of fun, in an I'm-whipping-my-best-friend kind of way.

Hannibal would tell him all that tanning had finally fried his brain. B.A., well…

Hard to say with the Big Guy. He might either laugh it off or tell him to…

"Holy SHIT! Daaaaaa-yum!"

Face felt his blood turn to ice. Only one man on the face of the planet that said the word exactly like that.

"You two doin' what I _think _you're doin', man?" How B.A. had sneaked into the room undetected was irrelevant. The fact that he had presented a problem. A big problem.

It took Face a millisecond's hesitation to recover. A millisecond was enough for him to come up with a logical, rational explanation. He hoped.

"This is a re-enactment of the Al-Shabah incident, man! For Crowe's stag party next weekend!" Face put every ounce of his enthusiasm into the statement. "You guys are gonna get a kick out of it. It was gonna be a surprise and all…"

Before he could finish, Murdock picked up where he left off in the middle of "Murdilicious" and started gyrating again.

Shit, shit, shit.

B.A., for his part, looked like he was suppressing a smile. He finally crossed his arms and shrugged.

"If you guys say nothin' happened," he said, "nothin' happened."

"Just a little too weird-ass for me."

Face breathed for the first time in a minute, unaware that he'd been holding his breath. So B.A. wasn't going to kick his ass through the wall after all, or worse, report their "deviant behavior" to Hannibal. Thank God.

"How'd you know we were here?" Face asked for the second time that day.

"You're a hard guy to miss," B.A. explained. "All the 'terps back at camp were talkin' about some guy holed up in one a' Saddam's palaces. Only one guy I know'd be pullin' that kinda action." He grinned.

"Sure you don't wanna stay a bit, you hunk-a hunk-a burnin' love?" Murdock purred from his compromised position.

"You crazy-ass fool, you gonna do kinky shit, you do it by yourself."

"Just _askin'_, Bosco."

"Shut up, fool." As B.A. turned to leave, he glared at Face. "And you get to scrounge me up some more scrap metal, or else Crowe might get his surprise ruined, right?"

The implication set in a second afterwards. B.A. had just blackmailed him. And he hated being out in the hot sun looking for pieces of scrap metal.

He was screwed. Literally.

And it wasn't even oh-nine hundred yet.

"Faceman, you wanna pass me another one?" Murdock asked breathlessly, breaking the awkward silence in his inimitable way. He'd already had three and showed no signs of slowing down.

On the TV, the news had given way, finally, to a familiar, welcome sight. Not football, or even the Phils, but…

SpongeBob. In poorly-dubbed Arabic.

"Bottoms up, I guess," Face sighed, downing a mini-bottle of Captain Morgan in one gulp.

"You wanna get some more Murdiliciousness?"

A tempting proposition.

"Oh, I suppose..."

"Face?"

"Hmmm?"

"You wanna unlock me so I can watch? Pretty please?" The gears had shifted in Murdock's mind, again.

It had been that kind of morning. That kind of fucking _year_.

Good thing Murdock was there to embrace the suck with him.

_Fini_


End file.
